


the girl

by cestmabiologie



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 23:57:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17293775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cestmabiologie/pseuds/cestmabiologie
Summary: The girl isn’t allowed to leave. The House won’t let her walk back home and go back to her own bed, even if she is sneaky.Abigail Dudley has been left behind at Hill House. These are glimpses into her afterlife there.





	the girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hittooclosetohome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hittooclosetohome/gifts).



> hittooclosetohome suggested that I write something about Abigail, but this is perhaps not as soft as intended.

_Let it starve,_ the girl’s mother says on the first night. She’d hugged the girl close but the girl hadn’t felt it.

 

The girl’s father has always called her mother a towering woman. _Your mother’s a towering woman_ , he’d say and he’d smile when he said it. Her mother, a tower. Bigger even than the House. The girl knew that’s not what he meant, but she liked the idea. Her mother was solid and strong and stood up straighter than any tree.

 

On that first night her mother was crumpled and crying and hardly a tower at all.

 

* * *

 

On the second night, the girl makes herself scarce. There are people in the House, real people looking everywhere and trying to understand what had happened the night before. The girl understands that these people mean that her mother and father can’t come back. Not yet.

 

The girl isn’t allowed to leave. The House won’t let her walk back home and go back to her own bed, even if she is sneaky. It’s not all that different from her mother’s rules. At least the House is much bigger than she had imagined. It shows her rooms and rooms and stories and secrets. She wonders how many of these rooms are rooms that Luke has explored. She wonders when Luke will be allowed to come back so she can show them to him. He’s left his hat behind. And his crayons.

 

* * *

 

On the third night, the girl hears a baby crying. The house shows her new hallways and new staircases and new rooms until she finds it. It isn’t warm and rosy like babies should be, but it kicks and it’s loud. She picks it up and rocks it like a doll until it quiets, which is seconds sooner than her arms would give out from its weight. The girl understands that it's a ghost like her. She's pretty sure it's a ghost that likes her. There are a lot of others living in the House. The girl is pretty sure that she hasn't met them all. Some of them talk to her and tell her about their lives before coming to stay at the House. Most of them don't talk to her at all. Luke's mother talks to her the most. She likes to tell stories to the girl. She says that they are stories that she used to tell to Luke and Nell to help them fall asleep at night, or to help them imagine stories of their own. The girl likes these stories best and tries to imagine stories of her own. Mostly she imagines what stories Luke might have dreamed up to tell her if he were here still. 

 

The girl tells her mother about the baby. Her mother is quiet for a long time.

 

_Can you show me?_ she asks the girl. So, the girl leads the way through the hallways and up staircases and into rooms that are not so new anymore. The baby isn’t where she’d found it before. The girl can sense that it’s nearby, but she can’t tell where it’s hiding.

 

_If you stay longer you might hear it,_ the girl tells her, but her mother shakes her head. She’s never liked staying in the House after dark.

 

* * *

 

On the sixteenth night, Luke’s mother invites the girl to a tea party. It's just her and the girl but she puts out more cups and saucers as if other people are coming soon. The girl reaches for the cup of stars and Luke’s mother gently stops her. She picks it up with only her fingertips and moves it away.

 

_This is Nelly’s cup_ , she says. _We have to keep it for when she comes home. You have your own cup._

 

The girl does have her own cup and she holds it while Luke’s mother pretends to pour. She raises it to her lips and pretends to sip the pretend tea. She tries to remember what tea should taste like. She remembers how it shouldn’t taste and how it shouldn’t burn her throat.

 

* * *

 

On the forty-fourth night, the girl hears the sound of glass smashing and smashing again. In Luke’s old room she finds rocks on the floor. She remembers the stories that Luke’s mom has told her on other nights, about stones raining down from the sky like an answer from God.

 

But then she hears voices and laughing, and what she learns later is the rattle of a marble inside a can of spray paint. These are the first people who visit the House to sin, but they aren’t the last.

 

The girl watches them from a window when they come and she hopes that they can see her. More than sometimes she’s pretty sure that they do.

 

* * *

 

On the three hundredth night, Poppy is whispering into the girl’s ear.

 

_They’re never coming back for you, you know, sugar,_ Poppy says and she gently smoothes the girl’s hair with something approaching affection.

 

_Your mother and father are going to have another little girl, one that’s alive, and then what will they need you for?_ Fingers tuck the girl’s hair behind her ears.

 

_Luke has already forgotten about you._ A hand rests on the girl’s shoulder.

 

It’s a mean game that Poppy plays, but it’s just a game. The girl’s mother and father always come back, even when it makes them sad.

 

Luke hasn’t come back yet, but maybe he’s not allowed to come back yet. Luke’s mother is still waiting, and Poppy plays her mean games with her, too. She tells Luke’s mother that Luke that Nelly that Shirley that Theo that Steven that Luke’s father that they don’t love her anymore and that now that they’re gone the world will eat them up and swallow them whole.

 

The girl knows that these are just games. She knows that Luke loves his mother because he told her once.

 

He’ll be back when he’s allowed.

 

* * *

 

One night when she is no longer a child but still very much the girl that she'll always be, something is different. It is the eight thousand and sixty-seventh night since the House took her in. Nelly comes back that night and the House wakes up around her. The girl wonders if maybe the House has been starving all this time like her mother wished it would. The House is happy that Nelly is back, and Luke’s mother is happy that Nelly is back, and the girl is happy, too. They will have sleepovers and tea parties and Nelly will be so happy that her cup of stars has been kept safe all this time.

 

Nights later, Luke comes back, too. He tries to hurt the House, but he doesn’t mean it. That’s what the girl tells herself so that it doesn’t hurt so much to see just how long it’s been. She pretends that it doesn’t hurt that he doesn’t seem to remember that she’s part of the House now, too.

 

_He’s sad_ , the girl thinks. _He just misses everyone that has been living in the House without him. He’ll feel better when he knows we’re all waiting here for him._

 

* * *

 

On the eight thousand two hundred and ninety-first day, the girl hugs her mother and buries her face in her skirts. It’s the first real hug they’ve shared in eight thousand two hundred and ninety days and both of them can feel the weight of every lost day in it. Her mother holds the baby, too and kisses its face. She will stay at the House all of the time now, even at night. The girl is still waiting, because there are still others to wait for, but there are so many who have come back already. They will wait with her. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed.


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